WoW Phishing Email Scam
WoW Phishing Email Scam
WoW (World of Warcraft) is a common target for Phishing Email Scams, and they will attempt to obtain your logon details and then change them so they can on-sell your characters or account. Not sure what Phishing is? Well have a quick read of this article, it will give you a basic understanding of Phishing Scams and the techniques they use.
World of Warcraft is the largest online PC game in the world. With over 12 million subscribers it really is the big gorilla of the massively multiplayer genre. There is a lot of money to be made for people who sell accounts and characters to players who are too lazy or don't feel they have the time to level or obtain items themselves. And wherever there is money to be made, there is Phishers!
There have been numerous clever Phishing attempts against WoW, all of them changed the email headers so the email appeared to come from 'noreply@blizzard.com' or 'customersupport@blizzard.com'. They don't of course, this just a bit of computer trickey, but I'm sure it would certainly help in appearing legitimate to the victims.
One WoW Phishing Email Scam in particular even redirected people to a Phishing website called 'www.worldqfwarcraft.com'. Which may even be missed by the more savvy internet users who DO check the https address at the top to see if it has redirected them to the legitimate site. Some of them are even asking for not just logon details, but also Drivers License/Passport details and the like to 'verify your identity'!
This opens up a whole new can of worms and branches into Identity Theft if they can obtain enough information on you.
The WoW Phishing Email Scam attempts all seem to have the same hook:
"This is an automated notification regarding your World of Warcraft account. Your account options was recently modified through the Account Management website."
Oh my goodness, you are thinking. I didn't make any changes to my account settings. Maybe I've been hacked? Never fear, because the email provides you with a link to resolve the problem:
"You can login to Account Management at the following link to review your account settings: www.battle.net/account" - Obviously that link will not actually take you to battle.net but will re-direct you to the Phishing website!
Protecting yourself from the WoW Phishing Email Scam:
There are a few golden nuggets of information to protect yourself from the WoW Phishing Email Scam, let's have a look at them:
- Blizzard will NEVER provide you a link in an email that asks you to enter logon or personal information.
- Check for grammatical or spelling errors. These are common in Phishing emails.
- If you believe you have received a legitimate email from Blizzard, then go to battle.net DIRECTLY or through a search engine and logon that way to review your account.
To finish up, I would like to say that you don't need to worry that the fraudsters who sent you the WoW Phishing email scam obtained your e-mail through some sort of WoW related activity. Thousands of people who have never heard of WoW or do not play at all also receive these e-mails. That's why it is called 'Phishing!'.
If you want to make Blizzard aware of the Phishing email you have received, you can forward it to hacks@blizzard.com
WoW Phishing Email Example
I receive WoW Phishing emails from time to time, so I thought I would include some screenshots of what a Phishing email can look like. This one I actually received after writing this article, and I do believe it is a new Phishing attempt with a new website (as of 12.02.2011). Check out the pictures below - I made some of my own notes to help explain things:
